Perhaps you’ve already read my newsy report from Saturday (March 5) night’s “True Blood” panel at the William S. Paley Television festival and you know that I also perched on the press line and conducted a slew of very brief interviews with many of the show’s stars.

It was a full house of reporters and a more-than-full-house of “True Blood” talent and I didn’t talk to some of the stars and maybe only got a minute or 90 seconds with a few other the others.

I’ll be transcribing and posting those interviews over the next couple days, probably pairing them as appropriate — Deborah Ann Woll & Jim Parrack, Todd Lowe & Carrie Preston, Kevin Alejandro & Nelsan Ellis. I may post Joe Manganiello separately, just because I got a couple extra minutes with him. So stay tuned for that.

But I thought I’d start my “True Blood” interview coverage with my couple minutes with Alan Ball, who developed “True Blood” for HBO and remains its small screen driving force.

Click through for the first four questions I had time to ask before Ball had to rush inside to introduce the panel…

HitFix: A lot of characters already on the show, from Season One, Season Two, Season Three. Now you’re bringing in more new characters. How do you reassure fans that the old characters they love will still get serviced enough?

Alan Ball: Well, I can say that the core characters of the show are basically the spine of the show and that when we bring in new characters, it’s usually to interact with the core characters. We don’t bring in new characters for them to exist on their own. They’re there to help facilitate stories with the core characters.

HitFix: How would you describe the role, then, that this season’s witches serve in terms of those core characters?

AB: Well, the witches create some magic and some stuff goes on that really affects all of our major characters in a big way and will also create a danger that all of our core characters are going to have to band together against.

HitFix: Do the witches “represent” anything? Do they mean something beyond just being people who do magic?

AB: No. There are witches who are basically just Wiccans, who just are Earth-centered, goddess-worshipping New Agers who basically look at it as their religion and a philosophy and a way of life. And then there are others, maybe from this time and maybe from centuries long ago, who practice really dangerously Black Magic. So it may start out in one way and end up in another way that unleashes all kinds of craziness.

HitFix: The show has always alternated between being heavy allegory and sometimes dialing back the allegory to nothing at all. Where do we find it as we begin this season?

AB: You know, honestly, I think a lot of people read a lot of allegory into it that is not really that intentional. I think we tend to try to nod toward things that are going on in culture without necessarily saying, “Hey, the vampires are supposed to be gays and lesbians.” It’s just like it’s funny that there’s a group of disenfranchised people that are fighting for their rights. It doesn’t mean that it’s supposed to stand in for this group that exists in real life. I would say for me, it’s always not heavy on allegory.

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His lack of insights help to clarify why Six Feet Under and True Blood are such piles of garbage.

By: echos myron

03.07.2011 @ 1:32 PM

*helps

By: Carrie

03.07.2011 @ 2:21 PM

He can’t really be implying that the vampires weren’t orignally supposed to be an allegory for gays and lesbians, can he? Because the “God Hates Fangs” sign in the opening credits might have something different to say about that.

Also, it’s disappointing to hear his explanation of why they keep adding so many new characters. Yes, they interact with the original characters but there are already so many originals. Why not have the original characters just interact with each other? Just because he has so many different characters from the books to choose from doesn’t mean he needs to use them ALL. (And knowing just how many more characters there are in the book series that he hasn’t touched yet makes me very, very nervous.)

By: dan

03.07.2011 @ 4:30 PM

Carrie – I *think* there’s a line he’s trying to draw is one between “social satire” and “allegory.” And I was going to ask him about that, but he literally got pulled away from me… I’m not sure it’s a line that’s clear to him and I’m fairly sure it’s one that isn’t clear to viewers. But I can accept the idea that he’s going for one and not the other.

In theory…

-Daniel

By: jen

03.14.2011 @ 1:31 PM

“We don’t bring in new characters for them to exist on their own.” – BULL$***. They may start that way, but then he falls in love with them and doesn’t kill tthem or write them off when the arc ends, and so we’re stuck with yet another character with their own stupid boring plotline that has nothing to do with anything else.

I don’t sit there worrying that my “favorite” characters woon’t get adequately “serviced.” I sit there worrying that Alan Ball’s love of having 12 million characters will get in the way of there being ANY story at all. There are way too many plotlines going on.

Things to get rid of –
* The whole plotline with Arlene’s baby – WHO CARES? DISTRACTION, and the most stupid one of all of them
* The whole plotline with Sam and his brother
* Jason and the town of Hotshot
* the whole thing with Layfayette and Jesus (I do love both of these characters, but even I can see that there was literally no pointt to any of the scenes with them last season. and if those scenes were germaine to things this season, then Ball shouldn’t have wasted last season’s limited minutes on them and just kept it back until now.
* Anything with Andy Bellefleur – pointless distraction
* Anything with Queen Sophie Anne – The msot horribly miscast part ever. Get rid of her.